


How Not to Ask Your Boyfriend to Move In With You

by BurnItAllDownDahling



Series: Physical Training [4]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canon Character of Color, M/M, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23029120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurnItAllDownDahling/pseuds/BurnItAllDownDahling
Summary: He loves Kaidan so much.  But goddamn it, there has to be a limit, and alien tentacles are it.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/James Vega
Series: Physical Training [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655080
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	How Not to Ask Your Boyfriend to Move In With You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gwyllgi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyllgi/gifts).

> For a prompt given by gwyllgi: Vega, and tentacles. Following "Tattoos."

_ Vega,_

_ Having a quiet day for once. Well, "quiet." So you don't accuse me of hiding things later, I got shot yesterday. Just a little energy weapon fire through my shields; medigel fixed it right up. But it caused some odd feedback in my implant, so I'm on bed rest today, doctor's orders. _

_ Left me enough time to think about things. The future. Moving forward. When I get back, let's talk._

#

It sucks, having the hottest guy in the Alliance for a boyfriend, when said hot guy is off on some kind of top-secret SPECTRE assignment for three months. James doesn't know anything about it -- to protect him, Kaidan tells him nothing about his work -- but he knows he's lonely, and that life is both duller and harder when Kaidan's not around. 'Course, it's not like James isn't busy himself, even though he's kind of semi-retired from the Alliance after all the hell of the war and its aftermath. N7s are so rare these days that the C-SEC chief keeps calling him for off-the-books help. James suspects the guy is quietly grooming him as a second in command, even though James isn't particularly interested in C-SEC. Still, Bailey's favor allows James to have a nice apartment on the Presidium, which means he's generally parked in a place that Kaidan's always going to come home to. Because the Council's here, sure... but also. Kaidan needs one sure thing in his life, and James is determined to be that.

The loneliness gets to him, though. He jerks off sometimes, and it's perfunctory, boring; he's not good at imagining the tightly-controlled intensity that is Major Kaidan Alenko, so he tries to excite himself with the usual shit -- porn, a Quantum Fleshlight, massage oil and one of Kaidan's old workout shirts that still smells strongly of him. It works, but the orgasms are decidedly meh. Takes the edge off, though, so he guesses they're better than nothing.

It's just three months. Three... long... months.

#

_ Vega,_

_ Before you ask, my implant is fine. Better than ever. I'm having a little trouble sleeping -- sleepwalking, apparently -- but I'll make sure I see Chakwas when I rendezvous with the Normandy for supplies next week. Gonna be weird, getting back on the old girl, especially without Shepard. Well._

_ God, I miss you. One month to go._

#

Kaidan's latest letter arrives with a package. There's nothing in the note about it, but the sender ident is definitely Kaidan's. Return address mark for Feros. That's weird, because Kaidan usually makes a big deal about not telling James where he is.

Weirder still, James opens the stasis-sealed box and finds... a lump of dirt. Or that's what it looks like. When he picks it up and fingers it, he realizes it's actually some kind of tuber or tree-nut; it's got a hard shell, and thin rootlets have emerged from cracks in its surface. James checks the box again. No instructions. Should he put it in water? Stick it in a pot? He remembers reading that you're supposed to stick toothpicks in an avocado seed and suspend it half in water and half out. Which end down? This is frustrating. It's a gift from his guy. He doesn't want to kill it.

In the end, he sticks it in the fridge until he can figure out what to do with it. Vegetables last longer in the fridge, right? It kind of makes sense. Then he goes to bed.

That night he dreams that Kaidan's with him. Kneeling over him, face in shadow, body as perfect as always. He slides his hands down James' body, fingers splaying over his skin. He bends and circles one nipple with his tongue, then closes his lips over it and suckles. It's amazing. Even more amazingly, the fingers of his other hand tug the other nipple and it feels like sucking there, too. And somehow -- dream logic, James figures -- there's a third hand sliding over James' crotch, curling 'round his cock with decisive tenderness. Stroking him slowly, perfectly. It's so fucking good. James groans and tries to reach up for him, but Kaidan presses him down, keeping him in place. More dream logic; in real life, he's not remotely strong enough to keep James pinned down. It's unexpectedly hot.

But that weird third hand of Kaidan's is tickling at the _tip_ of his dick, and the little hole there, which is... er... James isn't really into that? He's actually super sensitive there. So when Kaidan pokes at it again, tugging back foreskin and squeezing the glans for better access, James squirms and grimaces and says, "MM, I love everything you do to me, but that kinda burns."

There is a pause. Kaidan lifts his head. Then he says, in a voice that is fathoms deep, bed-shaking in its vibration, and anything but human, _We perceive this orifice to be too small too accommodate the New Growth in any case_.

\-- whatthefuck --

James jerks awake, blinking. He is alone in his bed. For a moment the disappointment of this is so keen that it hurts. Never mind the blue balls from his aching, unsatisfied dick; he wants _Kaidan_. If only... his eyes sting, and he shuts them for a moment, fighting the lump in his throat. Just a too-brief, super-weird dream. 

Then he tries to lift a hand to cover his eyes, and realizes he can't move.

The fuck. He looks down at himself and sees only the bedsheet that covers his body. But instead of the outline of himself underneath, there's... something moving. A _lot_ of things. Moving.

Sitting up as much as he can -- his arms and legs are pinned down, _entwined_ somehow, with what feels like steel cables, but his head and neck are free -- he sees... vines. All over the room, really, twisting up the walls and still visibly growing as they reach toward the ceiling and start spreading there. He follows them down and sees that all of them are branching out from one very large vine, as thick around as James' thigh, which trails along the floor from somewhere outside the bedroom. To... his bed. Under the covers. Where it has currently immobilized him.

Oh holy hell. "What the fuck?!"

_Fuck_, says that voice again. It's coming from all around. From the vines. _Ah, yes. We know this word. **That** orifice should do nicely._

Something yanks James' legs up into the air, spread apart, pushed back to bare his ass. He jumps, and struggles at last, as something tickles at him, like tiny soft plant tendrils brushing along his cleft. And then something rises from beyond the edge of the bed. A bigger vine. Its tip is weirdly shaped, bulbous and glistening with moisture, surrounded by little soft nubs that are moving a bit... and just below this tip, further down within the translucent shaft of the vine, there is a small, dark, oblong object. What is it? James can't tell. But as the big translucent vine's tip begins to waver and drift down toward the bottom of the bedsheet -- and James' open, ready ass -- he can see the dark thing slowly pulsing up toward the tip. Like an egg, preparing to be... expelled? Laid?

_Inserted_. Okay, _hell_ no. 

James struggles, yelling, kicking, trying to squeeze his ass shut even. It doesn't work, though he breaks some of the vines holding him down. The vines aren't super strong at any point; it's just the aggregate, dozens of loops around every limb and his hips, and in their rapid regrowth, that keep him pinned. And to James' rapidly growing horror, he realizes the thing is still tugging at his nipples and stroking his cock -- as it has been since the dream. It feels... way too damn good. It's been way too damn long. But as much as he's distantly tempted to just shut his eyes and think of the _Normandy_, he can't take his eyes off that horrifying bigger tendril, and its cargo. He's pretty sure that whatever it means to put in him, it's not gonna feel good. In fact, he figures it's probably going to be significantly hazardous to his health.

That gives him an idea. "Door! Close!" he yells at the bedroom door. It automatically begins to slide shut -- and stops, withdrawing again as it encounters the obstruction of the big vine. It's a safety feature that's standard on all doors, programming them to not try and force their way closed if there's any biomatter their path. Good way to make sure the Citadel's doors don't randomly chop people in half. Bad way to keep alien tentacles out of James' ass. Fuck!

"Emergency!" he shouts again. Gotta override the safety feature. The room's PA bleeps to indicate that it's "listening." "Uh, chemical spill in Presidium apartment J-32! Biohazard containment door seal on bedroom, now!"

If he's wrong, he's going to lock himself his bedroom with Skippy the Amorous Dick Plant. Well, at that point he's going to just relax and enjoy it, because he might as well bust one last good nut before he gets stuffed with a baby facecrab or something. But if he's figured this right --

"Acknowledged," says the Presidium VI, which has apparently come online in response to his emergency call. "No chemical spill detected."

Oh, fuck, now James has to figure out how to lie to a VI that can read his vocal stress patterns to determine if he's telling the truth. "Biohazard for fucking sure!" he yells again -- just as the translucent tendril starts nudging at his ass. Holy fuck, it's lubricated. And those little nubs around it are starting to tickle at him, and _why do they feel so goddamn good_? Why does it seem to want him to _let_ it in, instead of just forcing the issue? The blunt head of the thing starts to push at him, but slowly, like a guy who cares and doesn't want it to hurt, and that is sooooo not the analogy James should be thinking of right now. He starts babbling out truths in hopes that one of them might sound serious enough to make the VI react. "Uh, undeclared plant matter that's bypassed customs quarantine, xenological contamination, _it's a fucking alien plant and it's trying to get in my ass_ \-- "

He suspects it's the customs evasion that does it. There's just too much alien plant matter on the Citadel for the VI to care about, ordinarily. Still, he's super relieved to hear, "Acknowledged. Bedroom door force override in effect. You have five seconds to clear the room."

"Just shut it! Just fucking shut it! Shut it now, you piece of virtual shit!"

And then, after the longest five seconds of James' life, the bedroom door, which normally slides shut at the leisurely pace of Citadel architecture, suddenly blurs as it slams shut in .23 nanoseconds. At that speed, nothing's going to stop it, and it shears through the main tentacle like a hot knife through butter. The big tendril shudders as it is severed, then in the span of seconds withers away. The translucent tentacle flails away from James, shuddering in something like pain, then falls to the floor as it, too turns gray and shrivels up. All the vines immediately start to die, and an instant later, James is able to wriggle free and scramble to his feet.

The PA crackles with a human voice this time. "Security override," says Bailey's gravelly old voice. "Vega? My board just lit up with something about a biohazard. What's going on in your apartment? A team's on the way."

Saved. He's saved. James shakes his head, still stunned by what's happened. But outside the bedroom, the tendrils are probably still frisky, so he's got to warn Bailey's people. "Uh, yeah, tell them to stop at the armory and pick up some flamethrowers," he says. "And herbicide, maybe. Also, make sure they're wearing, uh, ass-armor, in their bodysuits. Like, full carbon-mesh coverage."

There is a long pause. Bailey's seen a lot of shit. James has never heard him sound surprised before, though. "Okay, Vega, I'm, uh, gonna grant this request, if only because it's too cockamamie to be a prank on your part."

James laughs, a little hysterically. "Man, you don't _even_ want to know."

Bailey cuts the comm, and James slumps against a wall. Dead vines crumble under his back. His dick is bobbing and throbbing, though, and he needs to go put some damn pants on before a C-SEC team finds him like this. Normally he sleeps in pajama bottoms at least; apparently the horny tentacle plant took those off of him while he was sleeping. Fucking _plant_, man. Better than most of the shit he's done to jerk off these past few months.

He wraps a hand around himself and shudders. God, he's so hard, and that fantasy the plant made him dream is still lodged in his head, incomplete. Kaidan's mouth on his nipple. Hand between his legs -- playing with his balls this time, instead of weird kinky urethra shit. Sliding fingers back to rub lube into his ass...

He's got maybe two minutes before that C-SEC team arrives.

So, Kaidan sent him a plant that tried to fuck him and implant him with God-knows-what. Okay. Time for a deep and soulful couples' talk when he gets back. But for two minutes, James can tell himself that it's the whole plant-as-sex-toy thing that Kaidan intended, and not... the rest.

So he leans back against the newly vine-free wall, shuts his eyes, and lets the world feel good again. Just for a little while.

#

_ Hey, uh. This is gonna sound weird, but._

_ I didn't... send you anything, did I? Because if I did, uh, **don't open it**. In fact, take it to C-SEC and have them put it in full biohazard quarantine, and then head over to Huerta and ask them for a deep-neuron brain scan. No particular reason._

_ Home very soon. Please be okay._

#

Two days later.

It's been a busy 48 hours. James' apartment has been put under quarantine -- particularly the fridge, where apparently the seed that James stored there grew roots into every food-item and used that to kick-start its growth cycle. Who knew plants liked butter and eggs? An entire team of Exo Geni scientists is poring over every inch of the apartment for genetic and other samples. (James is really glad he flushed the tissue after his little stress-relief session.) They've pored over James, too, taking skin samples and, humiliatingly, a sample of the plant's lube, from his ass. It's all been very professional. Well, mostly. One of them told him, happily, "Congratulations! You participated in the reproduction cycle of an extinct pre-cycle species!" before one of her companions shushed her. Anyway. James has been through biohazard scans, deep neural scans, Reaper indoctrination assays, mutagenic analysis, and a check for lice. Plant crabs, maybe. Fuck if he knows.

Now he settles unhappily into a hotel room in Zakera Ward, opening up the small pack of scanned, steamed, irradiated, and inspected clothing the scientists permitted him to take from the apartment, and cursing when he finds an inspection stamp on his damn underwear. It's his favorite set of boxers, the loose silk ones that Kaidan likes because his dick hangs out when he's heated. Now even that memory is tainted. Damn scientists.

There's a bleep at the hotel room door. Since Kaidan's due back today, and C-SEC are the only ones who know where James is staying -- data that a SPECTRE can easily take from their system whether Bailey gives permission or not -- there's only one person it could be. James doesn't bother to answer because, hey, his boyfriend sent him a _mind-controlling parasitic plant_ that was apparently trying to resurrect itself from extinction by shoving a seed up his ass. James is an easygoing guy, but come on.

Kaidan's ident comes up on his omni-tool, with a text. _I'm sorry. Please let me in._

And normally that would be all it took. James isn't good at giving anybody the cold shoulder. He tried it once with Shepard and she beat his ass in a sparring match to break him of the habit, and since then he's gotten better at using his words. Even now he really wants to run to the door and grab Kaidan and hold him for the next five or six hours, and it's taking everything he's got to just stand here glaring at his omni-tool instead. He loves Kaidan so much. But goddamn it, there has to be a limit, and alien tentacles are it.

Another text. _It got me, too._

Oh. Shit.

He lets Kaidan in.

So, turns out Kaidan helped Shepard kill the parent-plant of the thing that ate James' apartment, way back in the early days of the Reaper War. Back before anybody knew there was a Reaper War happening, except Shep. So when people at the Feros colony started hearing whispers in their heads again -- you couldn't pay James enough to keep living in a place where a mind-controlling plant took over for a while, but no accounting for taste -- Kaidan went back to make sure the thing was dead. It was. But.

"It's the only seed we've found," Kaidan says. He's pacing now, restless and unhappy, in the middle of the hotel room. James is sitting on the bed, a little stunned. Okay, more than a little. "Exo Geni is pissed that they missed it; they've been over the place with a micrometer scanner. But near as I can figure, the parent plant stored the seed just outside the inhabited colony area. I found something like a seed pod. Its outer husk split open as soon as I got close enough, though, and there were Thorian spores in it. I had myself quarantined and examined immediately, of course, but these spores were different from the ones that got into the colonists years ago. Simpler, and -- we thought -- incapable of mind control. Spores produced by the first stage of the seed, which lacked the maturity to affect sapient beings' minds... while they were awake."

James blinks. "Oh, shit. The sleepwalking."

Kaidan sighs. "Sleep _mailing_, more like. And sleep corporate espionage, because apparently I snuck the seed out of Exo Geni's quarantine. Why the hell I sent it to _you_, I don't know. But when I did it, I..." He blushes. "I dreamt that I was mailing you something nice."

Well, shit. "Not a hell plant."

"Very definitely not a hell plant." After a moment, Kaidan comes over to sit beside him, sighing. "Especially not a hell plant that was trying to kill you. 'Cause, if you didn't know, it was. The seed's second stage has to be, uh, incubated in exothermic biomatter, before it can start growing into a big Thorian."

"Yeah, I figured." It's hard to stay mad. It's not like Kaidan _meant_ for James to get plant-seduced and almost-killed. And it's nice to have him close again, radiating calm after the chaos of the past few days, smelling all Kaidany and touchable. James shakes his head, then reaches over to take Kaidan's hand. "Okay. You're forgiven."

Kaidan relaxes, leaning his shoulder against James' shoulder. "I was terrified when I figured out what I'd done. Exo Geni got the spores out of me -- killed some, took samples of the rest, and now they're going to be on a bioterrorism watch list for the next thirty years, hope they don't mind. Then I had a second check on the _Normandy_ while they brought me here. Chakwas cleared me, but then I got even more scared when I heard about what happened to you. They told me you were okay, but... It must have been terrifying."

James considers. "Towards the end, yeah, when I realized what was really happening. But at first? Nah. Thought it was you."

Kaidan twitches a little. "You thought. A parasitic alien tentacle plant. Was me."

"Well... yeah." It sounds bad, now that he hears it out loud. "It's just that, y'know, it felt really good. I mean, like, you had three hands, and... uh..." He trails off, because Kaidan has turned to stare at him. With a grimace, James adds, "Look, it had been a while, okay? Let's move on."

Kaidan shakes his head. But he sighs and gets up and goes to his bag, rummaging for a moment. Then he turns back, and... he's blushing? It's cute as fuck. And he's holding out a little box. "This is, uh, what I _thought_ I was mailing you."

Oh, shit. It's a ring box. James stares at it, drawing back a little. It's not like he wouldn't say yes. He shouldn't, but he would. It's just... shit. They've only been a thing for a couple of years, and for a good bit of that, they've been separated by duty. He's not sure what to feel.

Kaidan blinks, then his blush deepens. "It's, uh, not what you think. I think. I mean, I've thought about that, not gonna lie, but... But. This is maybe an intermediate step." He shrugs a little, then bites his lip. "Just take it."

James takes it, gingerly. Inside is... oh. A key. The old-fashioned kind, made of a silvery piece of stamped metal, with notches and everything. No scancode, no cybernetics, no embedded VI that James can perceive. There's a little hole at its round end, and Kaidan's used this to attach a thin, pretty silver chain to the thing. Not meant to be a real key, of course, but James suspects there's an ident attached to its profile, which will generate an actual e-key when scanned. He appreciates the symbolism of it.

"So your apartment's full of dead alien plant and obnoxious scientists," Kaidan says, softly. "But. Um. I have an apartment, not far, right here on the Presidium. You could. You could live..." And he can't actually seem to get the words out. Second human SPECTRE, badass extraordinaire, fumblemouthed as he asks his boyfriend to move in with him.

This is why James loves him. So, so much.

James grabs Kaidan's hand. Pulls him back onto the bed, this time lying down and curling up with him. "You want your sure thing at home waiting, whenever you get back from a mission."

Kaidan's so flustered that he's almost purple under his tan skin. But he doesn't blink as he watches James now. Focused on a goal. "Yeah. I was gonna ask anyway, obviously, but given what's happened..."

James purses his lips, nodding and pretending to think. "Mmm-hmm. Yeah, I don't know, MM."

He's just fucking with Kaidan, but James instantly regrets it. Kaidan's more sensitive than he seems -- always primed for rejection, always ready for people to pull away. His smile fades now, and he looks away from James. Raising shields. "Okay," he says, in a neutral voice. "Maybe later, then."

James cups his face. "So, what I need to know is, do you have an alien plant inside you anywhere, right now?"

Kaidan blinks and frowns. "What? No. I told you, the spores are dead and the doctors cleared -- "

"Yeah, I don't know if I believe a bunch of eggheads. I gotta inspect you, _personally_, to make sure. If I don't see anything weird, then okay, I'll move in with you."

Kaidan stares, belatedly understanding. It changes everything in his face. The neutrality fades and he sighs in relief and a smile creeps back onto his lips. When James slides a hand under his shirt, the smile widens. "I guess I can agree to that. But, uh, I don't have three hands. Sorry to disappoint."

James immediately slides a hand into Kaidan's pants. "Oh. Well. Maybe we can make do with a third leg, then." 

Kaidan splutters, reddening again -- but he's still smiling when James bends to kiss him, and as the mood between them abruptly shifts from playful to something else. Then it's nice. Not a dream, this time. Also, no freaky alien tentacle monsters; bonus.

Also also? Third leg's the _best_ leg.

#

But on his first day in Kaidan's place, right after the movers are done (brand new furniture, courtesy of Exo Geni)... James removes every potted plant from the apartment, and puts them all outside in the trash. 'Cause, you know. There's gotta be a limit.

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, this was harder than I expected it to be. I think I must not be quite out of Devil May Cry mode after all. Probably why I didn't feel like running with the tentacles or the make-up sex in any detail; sorry. But for a friend, I will always attempt something silly and sweet!


End file.
